Never by Jessa Hastings

Author:Jessa Hastings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

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*The table girl.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thoughts are like helium balloons—someone said that to me once. They drift into your mind, and you can choose to grab the string—hold on to the thought tightly, think of it, dwell on it, mull it over—or you can let it go.

Neverland, in general, is a place where balloons of thought drift by frequently and easily, but were I to be entirely forthcoming, I’d be remiss not to admit that anytime the Jamison balloon drifts into my consciousness, I not only grab it by its string, but sometimes I leap into the air to reach for it and yank it down close to my face so I can look at it properly.

“Peter.” I sit down next to him, his brown legs dangling over one of the balcony nets, hands cupped together with a little blue bird sitting in them, staring at it intensely.

“Yes, girl?” he says without looking at me.

“You know that place in the sky where you can go—” I pause, trying to think how to say it without arousing potential suspicion. “The place…with the baggage?”

He nods, still not looking away from the bird, who’s staring back at him just as intensely.

“Can you go there anytime?”

“Yes,” he says, bored.

“Can I?”

“I suppose,” he says indifferently.

“I have some thoughts I should like to put away,” I tell him, and he looks over at me curiously, and then the bird makes a little tweet and flies away.

He gives me a frustrated look. “You just made me lose.”

“Lose what?” I frown, confused.

“Staring contest,” Peter says, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Now she’ll tell all her friends that she’s better than I am.”

I look after the bird and shake my head. “I can’t imagine she would do that.”

He stares after her too. “She better not,” he says, and were the sun not hitting the exact angle of his cheek how it is, lighting him all up like a glorious statue we’d pray to if we’re lucky enough to sit at its feet, I feel I may have feared for that small bird. But I don’t, because I’m at the statue’s feet, and it really is terribly golden. “What thoughts?” Peter asks, squinting at me in the sun.

“Terrible ones I shouldn’t like to bore you with,” I tell him politely.

“Are they about blood and guts?”

“Nothing so thrilling.” I give him a quick smile. “Just grown-up things.”

He pulls a revolted face.* “Yeah, let’s get rid of those then.”

“Please.” I nod, eager, and he offers me his hand. He can be sweet, I tell myself. Beg myself, actually, to remember that. “I’m desperate to.”

He pulls me to my feet and watches me with a curious face. Mindlessly, he pushes some hair behind my ear. “I’ll protect you from grown-up things.”

I swallow as I let myself be swallowed by his eyes.

“Thank you,” I tell him quietly as he takes my hand and floats me into the air.

That is a lovely feeling, the floating with him, up and high and away; it feels in these moments how I imagine it’s always meant to when you’re here.

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